Friday, June 25, 2010

Do you know the meaning of BPO? Or you think that BPO is only a "Call Center"?

A lot of people always use the word "BPO" in their conversation without knowing (what its real meaning is) or (its real meaning). Others have only one connotation for BPO which is a "call center". These are some of the misunderstood words today in the advent of this type of industry. Latest terms have been created and used in today's computer generation. Join me as we tackle this word in our 24by7desk Bpo Company.

"BPO or Business Process Outsourcing is contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business function (or process) to a third-party service provider," according to Wikipedia. Outsourcing is the root word which means to get from someone outside. Nearsourcing and offsourcing are the two types of outsourcing which only differ in location. The first one is a term being used for those companies nearby while the latter is the term for companies which are oceans away. Technology is the bridge for these two entities that make the operations continue. 24by7desk Bpo Company vary according to the type of service that they offer.

The most common type of BPO company is a "call center" or "contact center".

Another common one is the 24X7 Ticketing Management.

Data Entry services is also one of the most in demand type of HR BPO company.

Other services which need to be outsourced are Kiosk Remote Management, Logistics, Accounting, and Finance.

Don't forget on the list are the Software Development & Animation.

With BPO, thousands of jobs have been offered because of high demand due to financial crises. Business Process Outsourcing company helps those companies survive which need to cut their costs on manpower, equipment, training etc. Try to imagine a corporation which outsources all their business processes.

India is a major market for BPO Outsourcing Services. Although young in the country, BPO industry has grown phenomenally and has become a very important part of the IT software and outsourcing services environment.

Business Process Outsourcing or BPO is one of the fastest growing segments of the Information Technology Enabled Services or ITES industry. It is the long-term contracting of certain business processes to an outside provider to manage one or more of its business processes on defined and measurable performance criteria.

There are many reasons for which companies overseas prefer India as a good place for BPO outsourcing services. Indian companies are better focused on maintaining quality and performance standards. They have also attained the quality certificates for their services. Furthermore, they are promising a significant and continuous improvement in quality and productivity. The number of correct transactions per hour, the speed of answering calls and satisfying queries is high. The availability of technically trained and skilled manpower in India is making companies across the world look at the country as a profitable base to shift their high-end support services.

The BPO services outsourced by Indian companies have evolved drastically over the years. Today, companies are offering a variety of outsourced BPO services ranging from customer care, transcription, billing services and database marketing, to web sales/marketing, accounting, tax processing, transaction document management, telesales/telemarketing, HR hiring and biotech research among others.

BPO services offerings create a telephonic customer service center to manage customer concerns and queries through multiple channels including voice, e-mail and chat on a 24/7 and 365 days basis.

Let us take a look at some of Customer Support Services

Service Support:

BPO professionals answer queries to customers who call in to check on the order status of a certain product, to check for information on products and services, to verify their account status, to check their reservation status or for other such services.

Technical Support Services:

Customers call up to sort out various technical problems like the functioning of their computers, to understand how the dial up system works, problems with their software or hardware. BPO outsourcing services include round-the-clock technical support and problem resolution for customers with problems pertaining to installation and product support, up & running support, troubleshooting and usage support.

Telemarketing Services:

Outbound calls are made to potential customers to sell wireless services maybe for a telecom provider, to retail households to sell leisure holidays, to existing customers to sell a new rate card for a mobile service provider or to sell credit or debit cards etc. These calls are made to generate interest to promote and cross sell to an existing customer base or to complete the sales process online.

BPO professionals also provide insurance processing services with specialized solutions to the insurance sector and support critical business processes applicable to the industry right from new business acquisition to policy maintenance to claims processing.

Outsourcing simply means contracting out work, either essential or non-essential, to a third party who is specialized in that particular task, located either in the same country or overseas. When the service provider is located in a different country the outsourcing process is more specifically termed Off sourcing. Outsourcing or off sourcing is a constantly growing industry estimated at $20 billion currently, and the biggest chunk of this outsourcing pie is received by emerging economies like India, China, Brazil, Philippines and Mexico. So what are the various types of outsourcing processes and how can an enterprise benefit from them?

Outsourcing is of multiple types, like Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO), Medical Outsourcing, Accounts Process Outsourcing, Legal Process Outsourcing (LPO) etc. In BPO, which is the most common form of outsourcing or offsourcing, the non-core tasks like payroll maintenance, house keeping, and customer support are handed over to companies with proven expertise in the field. Similarly, a company would want to outsource it's accounting processes to a service provider in India or other country. With more than 1.8 million patents being filed annually, Legal Process Outsourcing or LPO has also emerged as a booming industry. Legal services can be obtained for far lower rates in India than in the US and are of the same high standards. Not just patents, even routine legal services like filing affidavits, are being outsourced to third parties as part of LPO.

Some companies specialize in providing knowledge oriented services relating to research and e-education, making up the blossoming knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO) sector. Even hospitals haven't lagged behind other sectors and are actively outsourcing medical transcription and billing processes to cheaper destinations like India. In fact, medical transcription is offering a new window of opportunity to many young persons in the developing world, especially females, to earn a steady income from a moderately skilled job.

So what are the Benefits of Outsourcing?

Outsourcing has many obvious benefits like reduction in overall operating costs of an enterprise. By outsourcing the non-core tasks like housekeeping to a third party, the company can concentrate on its core areas, say, software development. Also fixed costs like employee salaries and benefits can be turned into variable ones as the company no longer needs to provide salaries, maternity leave, travel and dearness allowance to employees who are on the payroll of the overseas service partner, all such essentials are the concerns of the latter. This represents tremendous savings in cost, which is especially useful during financial downturns.

Another benefit of outsourcing is that the same high quality service is provided by the overseas service providers, so there is no question of low quality work for low rates, as assumed by many. Moreover the members of the project team very quickly imbibe the work culture of the US or UK based client company and also possess excellent communication skills to complete the task in the shortest time possible. Outsourcing has also rendered continuous development possible, which means working in a constant cycle without interruption, cutting down on the development time drastically. While the UK based team works during the daytime and sleeps in the night, the India based team, which enjoys day, picks up on the task, thus rendering continuous development possible.

Outsourcing also has certain invisible benefits like obtaining a foot hold in new markets, understanding the psyche of the people before introducing a new product or service in foreign land and also certain obvious financial gains in the form of tax benefits, concessional land and so on. No wonder, outsourcing is here, not just to stay, but grow by leaps and bounds in the foreseeable future.

The outsourcing companies are most often asked to perform routine tasks, which have to be done on a regular basis. Nevertheless, the failure to perform such tasks will most probably not lead to the upright collapse of the business. Therefore, there are no great risks in outsourcing such tasks to foreign bpo centers.

Most bpo outsourcing centers strive to provide customized bpo services in accordance with all international standards, working for quality and in the framework of the given deadlines. The bpo call centers have experienced employees, who can process great volumes of information presented by private or governmental institutes. And now we would like to describe in brief only some of the most common services presented by outsourcing bpo companies.

Customer support services, provided by outsourcing bpo centers arrange customer service centers and help the people, who need to check their status, find out some important information on products or services, make or check a reservation and so forth.

Technical support employees, who work for outsourcing bpo companies offer technical support and solution of problems 24 hours a day. The problems usually lie in the field of operation of computer hardware, software, peripherals and Internet infrastructure. Customers may ask questions concerning the installation of a program and problems while working with some certain software, troubleshooting and usage support.

Telemarketing services, offered by outsourcing bpo firms, are intended to win the attention of most prospective clients for selling products or services, or to give more detailed information to customers, who decided to purchase the product, finish the sales process in real time.

Insurance processing services, rendered by outsourcing bpo companies offer specialized assistance in the field of insurance-related issues and provide services such as case management, underwriting, initial setup, policy issuance, inbound or outbound sales, and several others.

The data entry and data processing specialists, working at outsourcing bpo centers may be hired for servicing data entry and compilation from the mentioned Internet sites, data capture and collection , data entry electronic books, data entry from documents, manuscripting typing in to word , copying , pasting , Editing, Sorting, data to the format required, and other similar activities.

The services mentioned here are usually not crucial to the companies; however they do require time and efforts. Businesses hire the outsourcing bpo companies in order to win time and people resources for working in the areas, which can really change a lot in the way the business is run and increase its productivity.

24by7 desk is the fastest growing technical and non technical support company providing services in all arenas located in Mumbai, India.

We are the complete service provider focused on serving the needs of Small, Medium & Large size Businesses in the U.K, Australia, U.S, Europe, Canada & other English speaking countries since 2004.

Our expertise includes process expertise, consulting processes and technology expertise for our clients. 24by7desk builds and offers multi-channel customer care solutions via telephone, email, chat or web self-service to provide solutions that focus on improved customer satisfaction. We believe in understanding the customers exact needs and developing a customized solution based on this analysis. Depending on your unique requirements, you can choose from a wide range of services. Our customer service representatives are integrated to provide end-to-end services involving the management of entire business processes for our clients. Our services are custom tailored to each client’s business model.

Customer Service BPO Call Centers are created to provide state of the art services to clients and maintaining relationship with customers. Customer Support Cell, as the name indicates, is a unit which serves customers with their esteemed services and applications.

Companies are investing both time and money to retain their customers. This is because they are the ultimate profit providers to a Company. Moreover, satisfied customers bring in more profits by introducing more customers by word of mouth.

Call Center customer services are designed with client specifications and served with trainer's specifications. Companies go for such call center customer support outsourcing activities that are taken care of by call centers and given due consideration.

Customers are unhappy about dealing with computerized messaging. Live phone operators are better accepted for their services. That is where call center outsourcing customer service come into being.

Customers call to obtain information about a particular product, inform about a problem or error in particular purchase, or sometimes asking help for that product. All these enquiries are met with telemarketing techniques, which require different set of techniques and methodology to launch that specific activity, successfully.

BPO Call Centers work on high operational cost. Offshore customer support outsourcing is gaining popularity because they are less costly and equally or more competitive in approach. Inbound services and sales calls are carried out by many call centers that serve relevant customers through their services. Customers desire for personal attention only. This is because different customers have different problems. Then only customers feel privileged enough and remain loyal to a specific Company.

There are times when a particular customer doesn't get satisfied in any possible manner.Then this matter is taken up by team leaders who try to sort out their problem, amicably ant assertively. These customers generally mean to harass the tele-calling executive on the other end. That is why they don't get satisfied with anything at all.

Customer Support is the primary objective of Customer Service bpo call centers and this is the reason that they are dealt with extreme precision. There is no other alternative to customer Support cell. Appropriate and latest technology combined with well-equipped staff makes Call Center Customer Service to be delivered the best.

Outsource call center takes care of all the processes involved in marketing and efficient working of the staff. This allows the client to focus on business growth and strategy and leave the rest to contact center. The day-to-day services are also handled efficiently through bpo call centres for global organizations also. All the services are rendered through skilled and result-oriented executives. They take care of the minutest details also so as to free the company from any kind of tensions and make them work in relaxed atmosphere.

The inbound center helps in achieving greater customer retention and increased profitability for the company. The telemarketing services are also provided by the Customer Support outsource bpo.

These telemarketing services include lead generation, debt collection, product surveys and promotion, research surveys, and many other network-enhancing services. All the services are competitively priced, result-oriented and absolutely professional in approach. These state of the art services can drive-up the marketing efforts while focusing on up-sell and cross-sell campaigns. Telemarketing services help in giving you leverage in competitive advantage.

There are wide range of technical queries involved after the sale of product and services. The trained staff from outsource call center provide technical support and customer-support skills. This removes any kind of technical flaws and introduces product enhancements. BPO services are involved in providing pre and post-sales technical support to satisfy the customers at every step they want.

When it comes to recruitment processes, then also Customer Support Outsource centers are not far behind. They organize customer-assisted telephonic interviewing which helps in assessing the interviewee and mark the qualities there and then. The data collected is sent to the client for further interviewing. Clients go for technical interviews only as the rest is done by the contact center executives. Recruitment is quite cumbersome but is made easy through contact center.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Well, there is certainly no shortage of benefits available when a business decides to outsource its technical support function. However, it would be ideal if first we understand the reasons as to why outsourcing the technical support function has become vitally necessary in recent years. It may not be all that difficult because it's common knowledge now that competition has increased dramatically in the last few years, mainly due to Globalization. Customer needs and expectations have also witnessed an upgrade, something that has made it necessary that businesses provide the best technical support bpo services to their customers. Rapidly changing technology and the growing complexity of products and services is yet another factor that supports the cause of outsourcing technical support services. Here are some benefits that will make it even more clear as to why outsourcing technical support services should be a part of every business organization.

On-demand Information Access

24/7 technical support centers act as the "always online" link between businesses and their customers. Since availability of products and services is now no longer limited by geographical boundaries, it is virtually impossible to predict from which customer or from what exact location or what specific time zone, will the need be generated for using technical customer support bpo services. 24/7 technical support services provide on-demand information and support to whoever might need it, irrespective of the actual location or time zone. When customers learn that there is someone out there always willing to help, it builds a natural bond that helps build goodwill and loyalty. It basically helps ensure that customers stick to the same brand and do not move on to the competitors products.

Professional Expertise

Technical support staff working for outsourcing firms are highly qualified and are provided the best customer service training, all of which makes it easier for them to provide top quality technical support services to customers and prospects. Improved customer satisfaction is the immediate benefit that is derived, something that helps businesses attract more customers, usually through referrals and personal recommendations shared between friends, family and associates. It also helps ensure that businesses do not end up wasting their precious time, effort and resources on non-core activities such as technical support. There are usually more important tasks such as production, sales, etc., that require constant attention and cannot be ignored.

Cost Savings

Most service providers dealing in technical support services operate from developing countries where operational costs are significantly less. Since cost benefits are passed on to the clients, it creates a win-win for both providers and clients. However, it would be better if businesses check the quality of services provided because without them, the cost savings will not be all that useful. Quality of services determine long-term business prospects and as such, it would be unwise to overlook longterm gains for a few dollars.

You might have some hesitations about outsourcing customer service your technical support, but you should never forget that it has become a common trend and chances are high that your competitor might already be deriving the associated benefits. We would recommend that you contact a technical support service provider today and see what all benefits you can receive.